Financial Recognition for All Employees Worldwide

• Dr. Ariane Reinhart, Executive Board member for HR: “We want to honor the outstanding commitment of all employees worldwide in the past year”
• €436 or €218 to be paid to each employee, depending on country
• The Executive Board and the social partners sign collective agreements for the “Continental in Motion – an Alliance for the Future” concluded in 2018
• Reinhart: “Maintaining the employability of our staff is vital”

Hanover, March 19, 2020. Continental is rewarding the exceptional commitment of its employees around the world in the past year with an extraordinary bonus. Continental is one of the few companies that distribute such a bonus to all its eligible employees worldwide. Employees in Germany will each receive €436.

According to the works agreement, the negative net income for fiscal 2019 would have meant no value-sharing bonus. “We are obviously not satisfied with the results for 2019. For everyone at Continental, if there is no profit, there is no value-sharing bonus,” explained Dr. Ariane Reinhart, Continental’s Executive Board member for Human Relations. At the same time, she stressed: “Last year, the global Continental team responded to the many challenges with outstanding commitment and mutual respect, in a spirit of ‘For One Another.’ The hard work of our employees deserved better business results than we had in 2019. Together with the employee representatives, we have thus agreed to honor the impressive and exceptionally high level of commitment of all employees worldwide in the form of an extraordinary financial recognition.”

In this connection, Reinhart pointed out the diverse challenges for Continental in the past year, such as the transformation in the automotive industry, Continental’s “Transformation 2019–2029” structural program, as well as the rapidly deteriorating economic environment.

The DAX company also announced today that the Executive Board and the social partners signed collective agreements this week for the “Continental in Motion – an Alliance for the Future” concluded in 2018. The agreement, which applies to Germany, focuses on two issues: enhancing the employability of employees with more training and better qualifications, and expanding the employment security of those employees who are affected by the spin-off.

 “With ‘Continental in Motion,’ we and the social partners at Continental have already assumed responsibility at an early stage. We are actively shaping the transformation rather than simply letting it happen, and are thus safeguarding Continental’s future viability,” said Reinhart, adding: “We are maintaining the employability of our staff for the internal and external job market across the globe, based on our current additional agreement. This is an extremely important initiative, especially at a time of severe skills shortages and in view of our future growth in new digital areas.” At the same time, the willingness of employees to change and to invest time outside of work for their own training is also required, according to Reinhart. The agreement provides the framework for an extensive training offensive in order to strengthen the competitiveness of the company and to open up long-term career prospects for employees while expanding their chances for employment. This initiative comprises three key elements: the Continental Institute of Technology and Transformation (CITT), which was founded last year, a corporate-wide training process – which includes contributions on the part of the employees – and the expansion of the company’s internal job market. The program will be continuously updated with modules for specific employee groups.

The chairman of Continental’s corporate works council, Hasan Allak, was satisfied with the agreements that have been negotiated: “The extraordinary bonus for the employees is a good sign in difficult times. After all their hard work last year, the colleagues should not be left empty handed.” With regards to the alliance for the future, he added: “With these agreements, the demands of the corporate works council have been met with regards to the consequences of the Vitesco Technologies spin-off. We have thus opened up prospects for the colleagues at Continental as well as at Vitesco Technologies. The corona crisis and its unforeseeable effects show that such a massive project like the transformation of the Continental corporation including the Vitesco Technologies spin-off can be successful only when everyone works together on a basis of trust.

Comment about extraordinary bonus:
When calculating the extraordinary bonus, both the legal and contractual regulations of the individual countries are taken into account, in addition to economic performance. On this basis – as was usual in past years – the bonus is divided into two categories, for which the amounts distributed come to either €436 or €218 per employee. To be eligible for the bonus, employees must have worked for the company for the whole of 2019 and not have terminated their employment contract as at March 31, 2020. The bonus for 2018 was about €750 per employee in Germany.